Academic Rants

The tragedy of Trayvon Martin's murder made many Americans aware of stand your ground laws. Yet, these laws are common throughout the nation. Some 36 states have some aspect of these "line in the sand" defining actions.  There are two varieties of these laws: the more recent "Stand Your Ground" law and the older "Castle Doctrine" law.  Both allow you to use deadly force as a means of self-defense when you feel that your life or the life of a family member is threatened. However, the history behind these laws is not what most Americans consider associated with 2nd Amendment Rights. The Castle Doctrine comes from medieval English law stressing that only the King had the right to take someone's life. As a result, when people felt threatened they should retreat beyond the walls of the castle for self defense. Only if the castle wall was breached and the castle was invaded could deadly force be used. The Castle Doctrine was a concept designed to repel h...

  In her brilliant Harvard Law Review article, Monopolizing Whiteness, Professor Erika Wilson highlights the process of social closure. This is how predominately white school districts are able to hoard resources which in turn produce higher quality schools and ultimately better prepared students. What studies have demonstrated is that students in white segregated schools do better than students in black or minority-segregated schools. The statistics also indicate that most white students in white segregated schools do better than their black classmates. As a result, until we make wholesale modifications to our education systems, it is important for black students to begin their educations in white segregated schools rather than enter them at some later point. However, the legacy of residential segregation indicates that most people of color spend a great deal of their social and economic capital breaking into these neighborhoods later in life as opposed to earlier and place their ...